A Stroll Down Arthur Avenue
The Real Little Italy
by John Mariani

Fontinella at Mike's Deli

If you’ve been to Little Italy in Manhattan and were disappointed by the touristy atmosphere of the place, the T-shirts, and the forgettable food, it’s because you went to the wrong one.

The real Little Italy—a vibrant neighborhood where Italian-Americans still live, work, shop, eat and drink—is up in the Bronx in what is called the Belmont Section of Fordham. Others just call it Arthur Avenue, because that is the neighborhood’s main street, bisected by East 187th Street and lined with restaurants, pizzerias, cafés, groceries, meat markets, fish markets, pastry stores, and shops selling Venetian glass, espresso pots, and generously sized pasta platters. It is one of the safest sections of New York, with mothers and aunts and uncles and grandparents and sisters and brothers hanging out of the three- and four-story windows watching out for each others’ kids, calling across the street to remind those same kids not to forget to bring home the cannolis, and playing endless CDs of Andrea Bocelli and Luciano Pavarotti.

This is the Bronx the way it was in the 1950s, a time when figures like Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra, Eddie Arcaro, Rocky Marciano, Rocky Graziano, Jake LaMotta, and Julius LaRosa ate in the restaurants here. A time when names like Toscanini, Sinatra, Martin, Como and Tony Bennett were princes, none moreso than a skinny, local kid named Dion Miglucci, who called his do-wop group, the Belmonts, after the neighborhood.

The streets around Arthur Avenue still ring with the sounds of storeowners singing "Oj Mari" while they slice prosciutto—"Quanta suonno ca perdo per te"—"I have lost so much sleep over you." The air smells like garlic and tomato, fresh basil, coffee, and breads baking in the ovens of Addeo & Sons and Madonia Brothers. Yankee pennants festoon the storefronts, and men sit on folding chairs at their social clubs to watch the soccer games from Italy, sip bittersweet liqueurs, and read the sports pages of Il Progresso....

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John Mariani is well known for his frank and poignant writing in Esquire, Wine Spectator, Diversion and the Harper Collection. He is author of The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink and co-author, with his wife, of the Italian-American Cookbook.